World Class Poetry Blog

Ontario Review, R.I.P.

Here’s the strangest interview question that I’ve ever read:

8 - When was the last time you ate a pear?

(Answer) About two weeks ago. The first of the new year.

Rob McLennan knows how to get right to the core.

Poetry comes alive in the hands of Mr. Excitement.

You have until tomorrow to answer Don Wentworth’s question.

Whatever happened to American poetry?

More reasons to download the World Class Poetry Toolbar.

Everything you ever wanted to know about poetry + John Ashbery.

Today, instead of posting a poem, I’d like to maintain the spirit of religious poetry by announcing a religious poem contest.

The INSPIRIT Poetry Prize is $500 and publication in the journal INSPIRIT for an unpublished poem of 100 lines or less that explores issues of Christianity, culture, faith, and/or nature. To enter, submit a SASE, a $10 reading fee made out to Rabbit Press, and two copies of up to three poems. Author identification should appear only on one copy. The deadline is April 30. The winner will be announced on May 31, 2008.

Submit contest entries to:

INSPIRIT
c/o Baughman Memorial United Methodist Church
228 Bridge St.
New Cumberland, Pa. 17070

A sample issue of the journal INSPIRIT is available for $5. For more information, contact baughmanchurch at aol dot com.

I just returned from a National Poetry Month celebration of which I was the host. The York, Pa. Poet Laureate, Carol Clark Williams, was the guest of honor.

To celebrate National Poetry Month, I decided to make the event at St. Michael’s Reformed Episcopal Church on April 13 - today - be a tribute to religious poetry. That’s why I asked Ms. Williams to be the featured reader. I knew she was a Christian and a darn good poet. I was not disappointed, and neither were the others in attendance. Carol read some poems I’d not heard before, including the one reprinted below:

The Prodigal’s Mother Speaks
I have rocked you in my body,
small ship inside flawed bottle,
eager to set sail on stranger seas.

In a dream I carried you
past fallen fence rails
into a quiet orchard
where branches offered both
white blossoms and ripe fruit.

For you I have created mythology:
gibbous moon waxing,
the tallest pointing pine,
wild grasses, Morning Star,
Oracle Maiden tattooed
with symbols of Eternity.

For you, I would design rites of passage
painless
but significant.

I would set your path into the mountains
with flat stones
deeply chiseled with words like:
“Courage” and “Believe.”

You have made me
a fogbound ancient harbor;
I watch the West horizon
for your returning sail.

Crosswords: The Literary Journal
“The Prodigal’s Mother Speaks” is also a part of a literary journal called CROSSWORDS, which is sponsored by York Otterbein United Methodist Church. Carol Clark Williams is the editor along with Pastor Skip Spangler.

The journal is a nice first edition and is available for a $5 donation. Framed as an outgrowth of the Grace Place, a contemporary service of York Otterbein United Methodist Church, it’s a saddle-stapled issue that includes verse from Christian writers and is done rather well. Printed on regular stock with a heavy stock cover, the design is simple yet elegant and includes a versatile array of forms and styles within the Christian tradition. I also like the use of a quote from Mother Teresa on the back page of the journal, “We are all pencils in the hand of God.”

For more information on CROSSWORDS or on the Grace Place, contact yorkotterbein at comcast dot net or Carol Clark Williams at lucybeanstalk at verizon dot net. The church’s website is www.yorkotterbein.org. Tell Carol you liked her Christian poem.

Today’s religious poem: “Miracles” by H.L. Hix, as appeared in 32 Poems.

When they saw a man blind from birth begging,
they asked, Who failed, this man or his parents?
He replied, Seek not cause but occasion.
He spat, made a paste of dust and spittle,
molded it over the blind man’s eyelids,
and sent him to wash in Siloam’s pool.

Even as the waves broke over the boat,
lightning showed him still asleep in the stern,
and they marveled at one not subject to storms.

When the crowd found him on the other shore,
he said to them, You seek me not because
my words sustain you but because I gave
you back more bread than you had bought. Go,
find bread within yourselves, among yourselves.

Sometimes the simplest poems are the best. There are no intricacies in this poem. It is like a story, a narrative lyric that plays off a popular legendary moment. It’s final emotional truth relies upon a castrated version of the real story. It is true all the way up to the last line, where we find that it doesn’t quite end the way we know that it actually does. Yet we can be OK with that because it does end in such a way that it sheds light on the story as we know it. We can see it from a different perspective, in a different way, and still be blessed.

This has got to be a world record: I received a rejection notice in 24 days.

I sent a manuscript to 32 Poems on February 28. I got my rejection notice last night, March 23. That must be a world record.

I used Manuscript Hub to submit two poems to 32 Poems because I wanted to test the service. But I’d also pegged 32 Poems as a place I’d like to get published in. Manuscript Hub made the process real simple. No stamps, no drive to the mailbox (since I live in rural Adams County, Pa., the mailbox is a quarter mile drive or walk), no long waiting line for acceptance or rejection, and no hassles.

Since you can expect a manuscript to be in the mail for up to a week in each direction, 24 days from submission to rejection, or acceptance, is pretty good. The snail mail process usually takes at least 2-3 months, and that’s fast. Through Manuscript Hub, I got my answer in less than a month.

Initially, I thought the $2 fee for submission was a little bit overpriced, but if I can save myself two months in the submission process and free my poems up to submit somewhere else then it might be well worth it after all. While I might spend more on delivery fees overall, I also run less of a risk of pissing off editors and publishers by double submitting (and some editors will not accept submissions from you again if you jerk them around that way so it’s a big risk), and if the process can be sped along by a month or more on each submission then I may be able to move myself closer to a full book manuscript sooner due to the circulation of single poems in journals. I’m using the first person in writing this, but the point is these factors apply to anyone. Having a book of poems published six months sooner due to faster answers on submissions to journals could mean more books getting published and more financial rewards in the long run. That could very well make up for the difference in delivery fees.

And the rejection letter, this is the best part, was a personal letter from the publisher herself. That’s always nice. Most publishers, when they reject you for publication, will simply send an impersonal note, “Sorry, no dice!” Pardon my paraphrase. I can understand it considering that publishers are busy people. You can’t craft a personal note for every writer who sends a manuscript your way. But a personal note can go a long way to encourage a writer to keep submitting. And that’s the bonus. Encouragement. Thanks to 32 Poems and Manuscript Hub for making the submission process much easier and affordable. I hope more journals start taking online submissions.

I recently read a review of a literary journal that I like and found myself wondering what it was exactly that the reviewer was trying to say. Luckily for the reviewer, I hadn’t seen the particular issue of the journal that he reviewed, so I could neither agree nor disagree. But if I had to make a decision to purchase a copy of the journal based on the review, I’d be at a total loss.

The journal in question is Rattle. I like Rattle. I liked it when it first appeared in the 1980s. Though I haven’t been a faithful reader through the years, whenever I have picked up an issue of Rattle I have not been disappointed. Yet I recognize that no poetry journal is perfect and all of them to some degree can be improved. I think Rattle’s editor, Timothy Green, understands that as well.

A review of Rattle #28, poems by and about nurses, appeared recently at Luna Park. I was baffled by the review because some of the metaphors, in fact the language as a whole, falls to the floor and leaves me grasping for meaning. It got me to thinking about what the purpose of a review actually is.

A Review Of Luna Park’s Review
Gregg Weiss’s review of Rattle starts off like this:

There is much to be said for sticking to your strengths, for the exploration of a narrow milieu. In the twentieth century, artists as varied as Martin Ramirez, Charles Bukowski, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and A.J. Liebling exploited the concept of a niche aesthetic, either thematic or stylistic, to great effect. And while we all (or at least I) wish that we were Pablo Picasso, as native to “Guernica” as “Hands with Flowers,” we are instead generally closer to Jim Carrey: excellent at a specific brand of physical comedy, but mediocre in the dramatic roles to which he has more recently “graduated.”

Weiss sets me up fairly well in the first two sentences. Right away, I know he is critical of Rattle’s literary aesthetic. That’s fine. That’s what reviews are for. To point out the good and the bad and to make sense of them. But “good” and “bad” are relative terms. Something is either good or bad based on a person’s point of view, a particular aesthetic rendering. And Weiss certainly has that.

Weiss lets me know immediately that he does not appreciate the niche aesthetic. While I appreciate his prejudice, I’m not sure that it is necessary for a review of a specific issue of a literary journal. What he thinks about Rattle’s aesthetic philosophy as a whole has no bearing on whether or not issue #28 succeeds or fails. If the reviewer starts off with a prejudice of the aeshetic that he is reviewing then he shouldn’t be reviewing it. How can he be objective about that which he obviously has no appreciation for?

Where Weiss begins to lose me is in the third sentence. This is where he introduces his own prejudice (an irksome habit that too many reviewers are too happy to do much too often). I’m not sure what the parenthetical first person is supposed to indicate; I really don’t care about the reviewer’s aspirations. I’m more interested in knowing what he thinks about the subject of his review. Furthermore, I do not appreciate the assumption that all of his readers have the same fantasy that he has. How does he know that we all want to be Picasso? The fact is, we don’t. In fact, when he contrasts Picasso with Jim Carrey, the only thing I can think of is “That’s an odd place for an allusion to bathroom humor.” And it nags on me that Weiss believes “we all” are like Jim Carrey - first rate at our own niche aesthetic and second rate at everything else - while he continues to criticize Rattle for being what “we all” are. Suffice it to say, I’m not with Weiss at all from that point forward.

Creedence Clearwater Revival Vs. Pablo Picasso
The first sentence of his next paragraph is a jarring obstacle as a follow up to Weiss’s thesis:

Nearly all weighty-topic free-verse, Rattle 28 has opted for CCR over Picasso.

So what? I like Creedence. I’m not a big fan of Picasso. So right away, I’ve discovered that this reviewer has a prejudice that I don’t share. He likes Picasso and not Creedence. I’m just the opposite. He is sour on Rattle; I’m not. Therefore, my conclusion is, based on his negative review, that I should perhaps buy the journal because I’d probably like it. I’m sure that wasn’t the reviewer’s intention and it begs lunacy to think that it should have been. That’s not how reviews are supposed to work.

It’s All Downhill From There, Pablo
From there, the review just gets worse. Sentence by awful sentence:

Only one of the 98 poems features either a rhyming or metric pattern.

A statement that Tim Green says is completely false.

In addition, the poems of Rattle 28 rarely attempt humor, and are explicitly concerned with Heavy Shit: assassinations, cancerous mothers, religious minority, child molestation, unity, the death of a parent.

Again, what’s wrong with that? Shakespeare wrote both comedies and tragedies, but rarely did he write both at once. His plays were either comedies or tragedies. Where in the poetic handbook does it say that poetry should be humorous? Where does it say that it can’t deal with “Heavy Shit”? I’m not given a clue. This is just a statement that Weiss brushes right over to get to the next one.

The scope is ambitious. My preferred selections, however, flash a self-centered wit amidst an often ponderous crowd.

Again, the author here injects his own prejudice. Instead of just giving me an overview of what to expect from Rattle 28, he instead tells me that he prefers self-centered wit to emotional depth. How ponderously shallow of him.

What Should Reviewers Do With Prejudice?
While I don’t expect reviewers to hide their prejudices, I do expect them to be forthcoming about them and to not allow their prejudices to cast negative aspersions upon the works that they review. There is a stark difference between stating that one prefers a certain aesthetic and judging whether that aesthetic succeeds on the basis of generally accepted aesthetic principles. If a reviewer warns me, for instance, that there is not as much wit as heavy shit then I can judge for myself whether that is good or bad; but if the reviewer tells me that it is bad that there is more heavy shit than wit then all I get is a window view into that reviewer’s soul, but the reviewer’s soul is not my concern.

I do find it helpful, however, that Weiss gives me samples of the poetry involved. Then I can judge for myself, based on the passages, that the rest of what he says is right on or just too much of nothing. In this case, I’d say the latter.

How Weiss Helped Me To See The Light
One passage of Weiss’s review that really shines is when he talks me through the difference between the poems written by nurses and those written by non-nurses:

The 21 poems by nurses are interesting in how they relate to the rest of Rattle 28. As you would expect, the general subject matter does not lighten once we walk through the front doors of the hospital. There is, however, in many of the nurses’ poems, a gallows humor that, although not always successful, examines and comments on death, sickness, pain, etc. where the non-nurse poets of Rattle 28 often simply insist on the existence and awfulness of such facts. And as T.S. Davis notes in his essay on the relationship between nursing and poetry, the potential for thematic and emotional monotony in “nursing poetry” is overcome, at least in Rattle 28, by a visceral intensity of image and language that distinguishes similarly-themed poems from each other.

This section of the review tells me what is good and what is bad without the reviewer having to tell me. I can judge from the reviewer’s comments about the poetry as to whether the nurses’ poems or the non-nurses’ poems sound more appealing to me. And that’s what a good review should do: It should bring out the good and the bad in such a way that I see the poetry for what it is and not be overly concerned with the reviewer and his thoughts about it. Metaphors such as this one:

Rattle 28 reminds me of the dining-out scene in my hometown of Los Angeles: appealing restaurants like occasional plums in an overpriced and mediocre pudding.

And this:

For while the supposed small-moment magic of a Billy Collins may be endearing, expounding on the significance of a cloud passing a hammock depends on an expectational straw-man to an equal extent (although opposite effect) as Steven Spielberg does in Schindler’s List: the universe is more complex than a single cloud passing a hammock, and individual action is more personal than genocide. Like the emotional effect of Schindler’s List, the vast majority of small-moment poems may seem momentarily counterintuitive, but are ultimately self-evident.

do nothing to help me understand the nature of Rattle 28 and its good/bad qualities nor does it help me get a grasp of the reviewer’s thoughts on the work and whether I should trust him. These passages are overwritten and it appears that the reviewer is simply trying to be cute when he should be helping me make a decision as to whether I should spend the time and money on the product he is reviewing.

Is Weight-Free Verse Bad, Or Is That Prejudice?
Again, the final paragraph morphs into a void of misunderstanding as Weiss grasps for the right words to say, “Rattle needs improvement through diversity.” Instead of brevity and economy of words, he waxes into poetic mumbo-jumbo and unnecessary wordiness:

While competent small-moment poetry is easier to produce than competent weighty-issue poetry, Rattle 28 is emphatic in its embrace of the latter in a free-verse form. And while unrealized ambition is preferable to pandering, competence is always better than incompetence. How, then, to improve Rattle’s batting average? If Rattle was mine, I would either widen its aesthetic— specifically, to include more formal and thematically varied content— or reduce its length. In its current form, Rattle has a recognizable aesthetic— serious free-verse— but not enough successful poems. As I do not expect for Rattle to start restricting the length of future issues on the basis of this review, the success of these issues will be determined by the quality and number of weighty-topic, free-verse submissions— which Rattle obviously cannot control— or, conversely, by Rattle’s willingness, or lack thereof, to expand its aesthetic niche in regards to the “importance” of subject matter, comfort with humor, and diversity of form within its selections.

I am never led to understand why “weighty free verse” is bad. I only know that the reviewer doesn’t like it. That doesn’t help me as a reader understand why I should or should not make the purchase, which is what the reviewer should be doing. Every paragraph, every sentence, every word should be devoted to that one task, helping the reader decide. If I see too much reviewer and not enough review then I don’t trust him. In the same way, if when reading a poem I see too much poet and not enough of what the poet wants me to see in the poem then the poet didn’t do what he should have done. The same is true of fiction, creative nonfiction, humor, or any other type of writing. The reviewer must not make an appearance.

A review is not written for the author of the work that is being reviewed. Weiss’s comment “I do not expect for Rattle to start restricting the length of future issues on the basis of this review …” is simply uncalled for. Whether an author, editor, poet, or other producer of artwork makes any changes on the basis of a review should never be of concern to the reviewer. Whether or not the consumer can make an informed buying decision on the basis of a review should be the reviewer’s chief and only concern.

Why Getting Past Prejudice Is
A Reviewer’s Greatest Brush Stroke
Gregg Weiss falls short, not because he doesn’t have intelligent things to say, but because he doesn’t help me decide whether to purchase Rattle 28 or pass. Instead, he tells me why I shouldn’t buy it on the basis on his own prejudices and I end up wanting to buy the journal on the basis of his prejudices because I don’t share those prejudices. I have my own. A good reviewer gets past the prejudices and sheds light on nuances within a work in such a way that prejudices don’t matter. And when that happens, whether one likes “Olga” or “Susie Q” is a moot point, because reviews shouldn’t revolve around redheads vs. blonds arguments.

If you like reading reviews of poetry books, I just had a review published at Rattle, my favorite journal by far. I reviewed a book by Patrick Carrington. The title is Thirst.

The first paragraph of the review reads:

Rarely does a poet glow with grace on every page, but Patrick Carrington is no every day poet. Carrington won the Codhill Poetry Chapbook Prize for 2006. In 2007, Thirst burst forth a tall glass of water. Cool, refreshing, clear as cubes of ice.

To read the entire review, click here, go to Rattle.

The premise stood out like a stubbed toe. I couldn’t help but read the rest of the declaration. Bloggers do not typically write so well. And long. I thought I was nearly the only one.

Strong Verse at Blogspot is the literary blog of G.M. Palmer, the editor of an online journal by the same name. The journal can be found at http://www.strongverse.org. This is just the type of literary journal we need.

I am impressed with Strong Verse, both the blog and the journal, because the poetry is accessible. But it isn’t accessible hack. It’s actually well written, mostly narrative, accessible, and poetic. It is the type of verse that I would put squarely into the Millennial School of Poetics.

In Palmer’s view, poetry is sick because the poets producing it do not make it accessible to the audience. I think he is partly right. I believe there is a dichotomy in modern poetics. There is the type of poetry that Palmer describes, which is largely academic lyrical pabulum, as accessible to the man on the street as the Pentagon’s Top Secret security clearance. On the other hand, there is the quite accessible, sometimes profane, always hackneyed poetry of the lazy-bodies who want to be poets but do not have the ear for poetry. You’ll find these poets at your local open mic poetry readings overstaying their reading limit and heaping praise upon praise of others in hopes of attaining a return sentiment. On the one hand is the ivory tower and in the other is the oily garage. Strong Verse falls in the middle.

Palmer says poetry must rescue itself from the arcane by doing three things:

• Shift production from lyrical to narrative verse
• Change its distribution model
• Working toward canonization

I certainly appreciate where he is coming from. I am fully on board with point No. 2, which breaks the distribution of poetry down into five models:

• Emails
• YouTube
• Blogs
• Forums
• Websites

While I certainly appreciate the effort, the list is incomplete. He left out social networks and social bookmarks as well as audio distribution by podcast. MiPOradio is very popular, though I believe it can be improved upon.

Curing Poetry’s Ills: My Two-Fold Response
The issue I take with Palmer’s essay is two-fold: First, poetry must be accessible as he says, but it need not tell a story. I love narrative verse and I certainly think there should be more of it, but I would not dispense with the lyrical. In fact, I’m perfectly OK with the mixture of the two in some form and fashion. The second issue that I have with Palmer’s thesis is the bit about canonization. I see no need to desire it. In my mind, the public canonizes what it likes. The academy spurned Robert Service, but he made millions on his poetry and today is loved. The academy still won’t let him in.

It’s not that I don’t think we should offer analysis and literary criticism. I do. We should publish. Widely. We should have intelligent things to say about poetry and those who produce and publish it. Yes, we should give it new forms. We should distribute it through new media - YouTube, HTML, RSS, and future technologies.

I for one am totally in agreement that poetry videos hold a lot of potential for new developments in poetic presentation. I’m looking forward to those developments. But poets who are worth reading, listening to, and watching on video will be canonized in due time. Maybe not by the academy, but they will be appreciated by the audience that they attract.

I’m all for marketing poetry. The academy doesn’t do that. Not only do academics not produce accessible poetry, but they do not even work to make poetry accessible to an audience. That’s why it has no audience. If poetry is in need of any change, that is where it needs to go. We need to divorce ourselves from the acceptance of meaningless grants by meaningless institutions. They are killing us, and we are killing them. Instead, poetry should be offered on a barter and sponsorship policy. Poets must learn to market their products - individual poems, chapbooks, audio recordings, videos, multimedia presentations, etc. We have a powerful new medium at our disposal, a new kind of Gutenberg’s Press; the question is, what will we do with it?

Charles Dickens rose to fame largely because he was able to market himself. Whitman marketed himself. Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti promoted themselves. Those who learn to market their products survive. Those who don’t live in poverty by taking hand outs for verse that no one reads. If poetry is to have a future then poets must pick up new skills. We should learn to craft our poetry out of knowledge, experience, and pure grit and understand who our audience is then work to bring our product to the audience in a form that they will understand. That is the challenge. But are we up to it?

I believe Palmer is on the right path. We are largely in agreement and we have something in common. There is a longing in poetic circles today. A longing to be heard, to be understood, to be loved. But those things cannot be begged for with dignity. They must be earned. And it is we, the poets, who must cast aside our egos, our stolen jewels of superiority, and don the mask of humility as we speak to our audiences from the heart and not from the sleeve.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve fallen a little behind on my reading. I subscribe to over 100 RSS feeds overall and a good number of them are literary blogs. Most of those are poetry. But since I’ve been writing down my thoughts on poetics for the last couple of weeks I’ve fallen behind in my reading and keeping up with the latest developments. If you’ve sent me an e-mail and I haven’t responded then you know why.

I did find this little tidbit in my comments queue and I’ve been holding it for several days:

Rhyming Poets announces its 2nd Annual Rhyming Poetry Contest. Deadline: 15th July 2008. Mail 3 copies of 3 poems, maximum, with a declaration of originality. Fee $15/entry.

Prizes:

• $100+ 1st Prize
• $50+ 2nd Prize
• $25+ 3rd Prize

For more information, e-mail SBPoet AT Juno dot com.

And one more annoying thing before I go. This is why I browse the Internet with my sound on mute. It just bugs the shit out of me to land on a website and to immediately hear sound coming out of my computer speakers. I won’t be submitting anything to this journal or be reading its literary droppings. Besides, the page takes too long to load. It’s not cute; it’s annoying.

Poetry plus rock music. This is such a cool idea I just have to write about it. 32 Poems is partnering with an indie rock band to stage a rock concert and a poetry reading. I’ve considered this myself. It seems like an awesome way to expand the reach of poetry and for poets to break new ground in finding an audience.

I’ve been to poetry readings in coffee shops, bars, libraries, community centers, parks, churches, and in people’s back yards. But I’ve never been to a poetry reading/rock concert. I do believe that indie rock bands and poets have something in common that they should share and to partner on these types of events holds a great deal of benefit for both groups.

The event is free and will take place at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Md. on Friday, May 9, 2008. The Caribbean will be the featured rock band and it starts at 8 p.m. Featured poets include Sandra Beasley and Bernadette Geyer.

You can learn more about this event by networking with 32 Poems Magazine at Facebook.

32 Poems has also recently announced that it accepts electronic submissions. I sent in two poems just this evening. The process is real simple and utilizes a service called ManuscriptHub. You have to join the service, which is free, but to send up to five manuscripts at one time to one publisher is $2. That’s for every submission.

Right now there are just three publications that are taking submissions through the service - 32 Poems, Meridian, the University of Virginia literary journal, and Best New Poets, an anthology published by Meridian.

The service appears to be an extension of the University of Virginia creative writing program. The only thing I don’t like about it is the $2 per submission fee. That seems steep for an online submission service.

If you send out two poems with a SASE through snail mail it won’t cost $2. Considering the economics of Internet commerce, I’d say that even half of that is more than could be expected. I like the idea of the submission service, but I’d like to see it offered as a membership site with unlimited submissions ($5 or $10 per month sounds reasonable to me). Of course, the way it is now, with only three journals to submit to you’d likely only be paying $4 every three or four months (that’s if you resubmit additional poems to those journals. Since Best New Poets gets its material from literary journal nominations, working poets can’t submit there.

At any rate, I can see potential for growth if other literary journals get involved. Given the right mix and number of literary journals, a flat fee membership service would assist both poets and journals through the submission process.